


The Past Is a Foreign Country

by laireshi



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Happy Ending, Kinda, M/M, Time Travel, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 19:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18976609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: Dante is pretty happy in the Underworld, all things considered: Vergil is with him and he really couldn't wish for more. But time isn't linear there, and Dante glimpses a younger Vergil fighting Mundus.





	The Past Is a Foreign Country

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the beta to [devilsalwayscry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilsalwayscry/pseuds/devilsalwayscry)! Also big thanks to the spardacest server people for the brainstorming and cheering on <3
> 
> The wonderful [hel](https://twitter.com/heIbIindi/) made a [beautiful fanart](https://twitter.com/heIbIindi/status/1140451548079841280) for this fic! Tell her it's the best *_*

Felling the Qliphoth took barely a moment. The Yamato truly could cut through anything. 

“I _told_ you I could do it on my own,” Vergil reminds him.

 _Yeah, and leave him there, on his own, again. As if_. Dante doesn’t say as much, instead opting to shrug like he has no care in the world. “And miss the chance to kick your ass again? Never.”

That does the trick. Vergil falls into a fighting stance and Dante grins over his own sword. 

That they’re in hell is an advantage, really: no need to worry about property damage at all.

***

There are no days or nights in the Underworld. Time passes unseen. Dante loses track of their score—and Vergil does, too, or he would’ve reminded him, mocking. There are two states they effortlessly switch between: hordes of demons, their backs to each other, their movements coordinated as if they’d spent years fighting side by side ( _if only_ ) or no one else but the two of them as far as the eye can see, and their blades clashing together over and over again.

It’s good. 

They don’t talk much, but Dante slowly starts believing that what he’s seeing is real. The Yamato slicing through his skin is proof that Vergil is back. Vergil offering him his hand to pull him to his feet on the occasions that he wins is a miracle that Dante never dared to wish for.

(Dante tries to return the gesture, but Vergil scoffs at him, managing to look down at him even when kneeling down in exhaustion, and stands back himself. _Small steps_.)

***

They can go a long time without sleep, but Dante’s starting to feel it weigh down on him. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Sometimes Vergil gets this look on his face, weirdly unguarded, _remembering_ , and it’s like an age passes between one breath and the next as Dante tries to think of a way to make it better.

Only one of them had spent a lot of time in the Underworld, after all, and Dante knows all too well how that ended.  

Dante stumbles the next time they fight, the Yamato going easily through his shoulder all the way up to its hilt. Vergil frowns and stops moving, close enough that Dante could easily stab him back.

He doesn’t, and Vergil just _looks_ at him, making no move to take his blade out. 

“Sleep, Dante,” he says at last.

Dante taps the Yamato, wincing. “That,” he complains, “is _not_ a lullaby.”

Vergil slides it free. Dante’s blood splashes on his face, bright red a stark contrast against his skin and the icy blue of his eyes. There’s a drop on his lips, too, and Dante stares, completely transfixed, as Vergil licks it off. 

He’s leaning in before he notices it, but Vergil stops him with a hand on his wounded shoulder, pushes him to the ground. Dante goes easily. It’s not the pain, though it hurts even as it’s healing, but just the impossibility of the situation.

The two of them, together and yet not trying to kill each other. Vergil, _alive_.

Vergil, almost _caring_.

“Sleep,” Vergil orders him again.

The thing is, Dante loves to sleep. He naps all the time, even though he doesn’t need to. It’s an easy way to pass the time, to stop thinking for a few hours, to stop the regrets from eating at his mind. The nightmares usually can be silenced with a bottle of whiskey beforehand.

It’s different here, in hell, where the reality is Dante’s personal heaven. He reaches out to grab at Vergil’s leg just to assure himself he’s not a hallucination again, hides his purpose behind a yanking attempt to bring Vergil down next to him. Vergil frees himself easily, of course, but the brief contact was enough.

Dante is tired, that is true enough, but he won’t sleep, not unless something— _someone_ —knocks him out. He won’t close his eyes willingly and risk Vergil disappearing like a beautiful dream.

He can’t.

He does stay on the ground long enough for his wounds to heal and some of the more persistent ache to leave his muscles. A moment of break _is_ nice, even if he never lets himself close his eyes. 

***

They collapse together, in the end.

Dante wins that round, thank you very much, except when he knocks Vergil’s defending strike to the left and follows, plunging his sword through his stomach, Vergil doesn’t lose focus. He brings the Yamato back and cuts across Dante’s chest and they go down in a mess of tangled limbs, Dante on top of Vergil.

Vergil doesn’t make a sound, but his frown deepens, and Dante sighs, pulls his sword out and drops it to the ground. He lets himself fall back over his brother, fully expecting Vergil to push him away. 

It doesn’t happen, but before Dante can get worried at that—it’s _Vergil_ after all—exhaustion finally catches up to him. Like that, pinning Vergil down with his own body, he’s calm at last. Secure. He’s too tired to fully form the thought, really, but _Vergil won’t be able to get away without waking Dante first_.

It’s enough.

***

It’s horrendously stupid and insanely dangerous, but that’s not exactly _new_ to either of them. 

Dante wakes in time to see Vergil holding Yamato over him, to hear the loud cling as a Hell Caina’s blade breaks in half on it, stopped on its way to take Dante’s head off. 

All’s well that ends well, right?

They roll to their feet, perfectly coordinated as always, and fight again.

“Of course the hell's wake-up services suck.” Dante shoots two demons simultaneously.  

"Be glad I did not let them use your inattention." Vergil cuts with Yamato where Dante was not one second ago, like it's all the same to him if he hits his brother or a demon.

"You wouldn't let anyone else defeat me." Dante's certain of that, at least.

Well. Nero, maybe, at some point, but that's not a can of worms Dante wants to open at the moment, much as he is curious.

Later, demon corpses lining the ground around them, Dante leans on his sword and grins. "That nap sure did wonders."

"Maybe you should've listened when I suggested it to you," Vergil answers, because of course he can't let it go. 

"Nah. Wasn't tired then."

Vergil frowns at him. "I would not have stabbed you," he says slowly. "Surely you must know that."

 _No, but you would've left_. _You **had**_ _left._

He's silent a moment too long. Vergil gives him another one of his too careful looks that just make Dante uncomfortable with scrutiny. No one else could quite accomplish that, but this is Vergil. They _get_ each other even when their morals are too different.

Or they used to. After Nelo Angelo, after Urizen and V, Dante's not sure about anything when it comes to Vergil anymore.

"Speak to me, brother."

Dante throws his hands up in frustration. "I didn't want you to leave, okay?! I missed you and I'm glad that you're here." Such an understatement. "Happy now that you've heard it?"

Vergil doesn't _seem_ happy. Surprised, maybe, but he covers it quickly with a scoff. "Dante," he says, and hearing his name on Vergil's lips always did _things_ to Dante's insides, especially when he says it like that, with heavy intent. "Little brother. I have the Yamato. If I wanted to leave, I wouldn't need to hide it."

"You _want_ to stay?" Dante asks, almost breathless at the revelation.

Vergil lets out a long, pained sigh. "My recent experiences may have . . . proven the importance of family to me." He turns away, his back ramrod straight as always, like he's not just trying to hide his face. 

Dante just grins, wide and more honest than he remembers smiling in years. "Damn, if only I'd known earlier that all it'd take is to lovingly stab _you_ with _your_ sword."

Vergil's voice is a whisper, as if he's unsure whether to say the words at all. "It wouldn't have worked, before."

Dante doesn't need to ask which _before_ he means.

He congratulates himself on ruining the mood. "I'm fed up with the landscape. Any nice views in the Underworld?" The surroundings of Qliphoth are all the same; mountains of ash and broken roots as far as the eye can see. There's bound to be something _else_ in hell, right?

Vergil chuckles. "Choose between _rivers of blood_ and _bloody rivers_."

"What, no bloody mountains?"

Vergil starts walking without a word; Dante follows him. (He always will, now.)

***

"Huh," Dante says, squinting. 

"Eloquent as ever." Vergil's standing close to him, but Dante doesn't dare reach out and touch him. Not like that, outside of a fight, where anything could be taken like a declaration—of what, Dante's not certain, but Vergil probably _would_ be.

"Look there. Isn't that the Leviathan? I thought I killed the pest."

"That's probable. Better to avoid him, then." Vergil turns into the opposite direction.

"Wait, what? Are you sure you're my brother? _Avoid him_?" Dante asks incredulously. 

Vergil sighs. "Time isn't exactly linear in this place, Dante. You can run into the past events. It's not common, but neither is it rare. Better not to risk changing your timeline, don't you think?"

Killing Leviathan too early—or too late, whichever it is—doesn't really seem all that important to Dante as far as the events in his life go, but Vergil is probably right. He knows the place better, at any rate. 

"Okay. Avoiding it is. Wow, that's a new one for me."

Vergil raises one corner of his mouth in a smile, something almost like affection in his eyes. "We can just wait. The overlap in timelines only lasts a moment."

"I can think of a way to pass the time," Dante suggests. 

Vergil doesn't answer verbally. Dante doesn't have time to block; he just evades Vergil's astral swords. 

It's harder for both of them to land a hit now. They've always known each other's styles well, but days—weeks—months?—of exchanging blows moved it to another level. 

It just makes it all the more satisfying to draw blood.

A glance in the direction where he'd seen Leviathan proves Vergil's words true: there's no sign of the demon, only the Underground's bleak landscape. 

Dante lets his devil side take over; Vergil does the same. 

He's as beautiful and elegant with his movements when he looks like a full-blooded demon as ever. The sight of him makes Dante's blood sing in his veins, and he meets him blow for blow. Finally, he grazes Vergil's arm with his sword.

He stops. He licks the blood from his sword and wonders how, if at all, different Vergil's blood is to his, if when Vergil licked Dante's blood from his own face earlier he tasted the same addictive, beguiling taste.

Vergil doesn't use Dante's distraction to win this round, so the answer is probably _yes_.

They fly into the air then, still fighting, as close as they ever were, and it's almost as good as kissing Vergil would be. 

When they tire, at last, they fall, together, hitting the ground at the same time, and Dante meets Vergil's eyes, pale blue as ever, his white hair in disarray, falling down his forehead. 

"Draw?" Dante offers.

Vergil nods, satisfied.

***

The next time Vergil tells him to sleep, Dante does.

He lies down on the ground, his head cushioned on his hands, and he looks up at his brother's silhouette, guarding him. It's like when they were kids and Vergil insisted he was the older one, he had to take care of him. Their home was safe—or so they'd both believed until it was too late and Eva's blood splashed on the pristine floors—but when Dante napped, Vergil always promised to protect him from monsters. Dante only had good dreams then. 

He wants to ask Vergil to come lay next to him, but he thinks Vergil wouldn't.

Dante wanders through hell, having gone so long without seeing the human world that his brain can't seem to conjure the images of it even in his dreams. Vergil is at his side. They don't fight. They just walk, aimlessly, forever.

"Let's go home, brother," Vergil says at some point.

 _But home is gone. Home burnt_ , Dante thinks. There's no coming back.

"I tried living in our father's homeland. Let's go back to our mother's," Vergil adds, the perfect temptation; the impossible offer.

"Hate to break it to you, brother, but we kinda closed the last portal," Dante answers heavily.

Vergil just smirks. "Isn't that why father gave me the Yamato? To always bring you back?"

"We _can't_ , Vergil."

Vergil draws the Yamato and cuts through space before Dante even finishes saying his name.

He looks at his portal, and then, without a word, he walks through it, _alone_ , Dante's fingers outstretched to stop him, but too late; he always is too late when it comes to Vergil, and now he has lost him, again, Vergil _abandoned him_ again—

Dante wakes up with a gasp.

Vergil's looks sideways at him, his hand on the hilt of his sword. He's _there_. Next to Dante. He hadn't gone through a portal. He hadn't simply walked too far away to be found again, either.

 _Yet_.

It wasn't even a bad dream, as far as those go: he didn't have to see Vergil die this time, or see him falling into hell again. It still left Dante alone. His heartbeat is speeding and it takes all his willpower to stop himself from reaching for Vergil and holding him close and never, ever letting go.

 _He said he'd stay_ , Dante thinks, but that's not exactly right. Vergil is very particular with his words, and he didn't promise not to leave.

Vergil doesn't ask if he slept well, and Dante doesn't volunteer the information. How would he even explain the concept of a nightmare to his brother? Much less one that feels like it could come true any moment?

Better to move on.

He stretches his arms and yawns in an exaggerated way. "Better already," he says. "Your turn, Vergil."

It's a testament to Vergil's exhaustion that he doesn't argue. 

Dante should watch the land around them, make sure no one sneaks up on them, but he knows he'd sense any demons approaching, so instead he watches _Vergil_.

There was a time they'd sleep curled into each other, so used to each other's presence that they weren't woken by the other one turning in their sleep. Looking at him now, there was never any worry of being woken up by Vergil. He's as still in his sleep as he tends to be when awake, unless he's trying to kill you and moving too fast to follow. The only weird thing is his hand, closed around the Yamato's sheath so hard his knuckles went white. 

Of course, that's his way out, away from Dante. No wonder he clings to it.

Why was Vergil the one gifted the Yamato? Why did he get a surefire way to leave Dante whenever he wanted and Dante, nothing to hold him back with?

Now would be when he takes a drink, but he's in hell and the only thing they serve here is demonic ichor. 

Vergil wakes up some time later, his breathing even and his face calm. Maybe Dante really had killed his nightmares. (If only it were that easy.)

Dante lets him get up before attacking, and Vergil dodges easily, the Yamato still sheathed in his hand.

"Gotta keep you on your toes," Dante says.

"I'd be more surprised if we didn't fight, brother," Vergil answers.

Dante hates admitting Vergil's right.

***

A few duels later, and a weird sensation runs through Dante's veins. He can always _feel_ Vergil when he's nearby, their shared blood calling to each other. It was natural when they were kids, and when they lost each other, Dante never quite felt like he was whole again. A part of him finds it terrifying that he's getting used to Vergil's presence again.

But it's changed, just now. Like there's an echo. Like—

Dante turns around and sees a tall, white-haired figure clad in a blue coat get slammed into the ground—

He gets up, and even from this distance his movements are painfully familiar, the unsheathing of the sword too fast to see. He's brought down again, a wave of dark energy pressing him down; black tentacles wrapping themselves around his limbs as three red orbs watch from the sky.

Dante wakes up from his reverie. He steps forward, once, twice, and then Vergil's hand wraps around his arm like a vice.

"What are you doing?" he asks flatly.

Like it's even a question. Like Dante's not seeing Mundus overpower his twin over twenty years ago—right now, right here, where Dante _can fix it_. Can undo all those mistakes. All that regret that he didn't jump after Vergil. He can't change his own actions, but he can atone for them. 

And Vergil's holding him back. 

"What does it look like?" Dante wrestles his hand free. "It's _you_ , Vergil, and I'm not standing back."

"It's done," Vergil enunciates. "It's in the past. It's over. It's better this way."

" _I had to kill you!_ "

"And yet, here I am."

He's not listening. Of course he isn't, he _never_ is, but this is about him, Dante thought this one time they'd be on the same page—he doesn't have time for this. 

Dante can fix it all.

"Let me go." Dante stares at his twin, ready to attack.

"You'd be changing both our pasts."

"Wow, Vergil, that certainly never occurred to me, why would I do such a thing—ah, right, _to save you from Mundus I would_."

He's not a time travel expert, but he's not dumb. He knows taking Mundus on now before he makes Vergil into Nelo Angelo will most likely erase him from existence, let some other Dante take his place with a different past and different experiences.

Dante has no problem with that. That other, potential Dante? He'll have his brother at his side and his hands clean from familiar blood. 

That's worth any sacrifice.

And Vergil is in his way.

Dante reaches for his sword. 

He can't even draw it: Vergil's started moving a fraction of a second before him. He drives the Yamato through Dante's chest, right next to his heart.

Dante coughs up blood, but his hands go to the blade, try to pull it out—he has to, he _has to_ , for the younger Vergil, for himself—but Vergil doesn't let him. He swipes Dante's legs from under him, pushes him down, takes the Yamato out and stabs him again in a fluid motion so that it's literally pinning him down. 

"Let me go!" Dante screams at him. "It's you—"

Vergil grabs Dante's sword and stabs it into Dante's chest right by the Yamato, his face twisted. "I can't let you do this, brother."

Dante turns his head, and he can still see the other Vergil, struggling, but clearly weakening. He thrashes and he swears at Vergil; he lets out his devil and roars, but so does Vergil, and he keeps Dante down with an infinitely strong grasp on both their swords and an unforgiving knee pressed into Dante's stomach. 

"This isn't your decision, Dante," he growls.

"It sure as hell isn't yours!"

"It's my life you'd be— _saving_ ," Vergil hisses. "That makes it my choice, brother."

Dante reverts back to his normal form, hoping Vergil will follow suit once again. He does, but Dante can't read his face. His features are tight, his teeth clenched. Dante doesn't understand, and doesn't care to, not really. He grabs at his blade again, but he only succeeds in cutting his palm. Vergil's not letting him up. 

"Fuck you," he spits at him. 

There's a cutting scream piercing the air. Dante flinches, because he knows this voice but he's never heard his brother like that. Vergil, though; Vergil doesn't react. Like it doesn't bother him, what's happened, what's happening right now.

Dante coughs up more blood, his movements just making his situation worse, and Vergil watches him impassively. 

Dante can't look at him. He looks to the side again. The other Vergil isn't moving anymore. 

This is how it all started. If nothing else, Dante owes it to him to _watch_. ( _Why hadn't he jumped after him?_ , the one unanswered regret of his life.)

It lasts only a second longer.

The younger Vergil just— _disappears_ , and Dante . . . stops struggling. What’s the point, now? It’s too late. Again. He failed Vergil over twenty years ago, and he failed him again _now_. He never could save his brother.

Vergil’s face is set in stone as he pulls the swords pinning Dante down out; first Dante’s sword, throwing it to the ground next to him, then the Yamato. 

For a long moment, Dante simply _stares_ at him. “What the fuck, Vergil?” he asks as his body slowly mends itself together. Distantly, he’s aware of the pain—nothing quite like getting stabbed with Sparda’s weapons, nothing quite like getting stabbed _by Vergil_ —but it doesn’t matter. He’ll heal. He always does. No scars to show for all four decades of his life; not where Vergil first stabbed him with the Rebellion nor the sharp cut that he sliced through Dante’s palm.

This, here, won’t leave a mark either. It’ll be like nothing ever happened. And nothing did, really, because Dante was too slow now and too much of a coward then. 

He gets up. He reaches for his sword.

Vergil parries, but he doesn’t strike back. It’s a good thing. It serves to make Dante angrier, and anger is infinitely better than the hollow emptiness of moments ago.

“Answer me!” he roars, attacking. Vergil dodges, silently. “Did you like being Mundus’ puppet that much?!”

Vergil goes paler than Dante’s ever seen him—but he still doesn’t draw his blade. 

“And what if I did,” he says with no inflection, decades of suffering evident in his eyes for once, and Dante doesn’t _get it_ , thinks he doesn’t even _want_ to understand whatever twisted reasons his twin had for stopping him from fixing both their lives, from undoing a history of pain and ruin.

 _It’s better this way_ , he said. 

“You asshole,” Dante spits. He’s too angry to use his sword, even, too angry to think, to comprehend; and it’s a purely human anger, so much that he doesn’t let his demon side take over.

There’s nothing satisfying about the sound of his fist connecting with Vergil’s jaw, about seeing his twin spit blood. 

_You could’ve saved him_ echoes in Dante’s mind like an eternal reminder. 

That scream. Dante shivers. 

"Why," he repeats.

Something snaps in Vergil.

Dante raises his sword to block in time, but the strength, the pure viciousness behind the hit surprises him. He pushes back, and Vergil doesn't let him, swinging the Yamato through the air. It's not like his normal fighting style—composed, _elegant_ , lethal. This is Vergil out of control, lashing out. 

Dante doesn't think he's ever seen him like that, but it's _him_ who's got a reason to be mad. 

It's ugly and dirty. Dante's blood is on fire, and even his sword feels too _impersonal_. He abandons it for Balrog, is surprised when Vergil changes his beloved Yamato for a similar set of weapons. 

Maybe they are similar after all. 

"Enlighten me," Vergil snarls while punching Dante in the stomach. "Had I not stopped you, what do you think would've happened?"

Dante's almost sure he can feel Vergil's ribs cracking under his punch. "Geez, I don't know, I'd have _saved you from years of servitude?"_

And himself, from killing Vergil. 

"So Mundus could've gone after you instead?" Vergil asks, punctuating it with a kick to Dante's side that sends him flying. 

Dante's back on his feet in a second, back on Vergil in two, catching him with a left hook to his jaw. "What?"

Vergil stops and stares at him, his cheek bruised, his lip split and bleeding over his chin. He's favouring his left side. "He'd know we're alive. He'd have gone after you next," he says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

If he escaped them, Dante guesses that is a possibility, but . . . why does Vergil care? He'd be safe.

"Still a better outcome," Dante tells him, dropping the fighting stance too. He winces when he takes a deeper breath. 

Vergil's face is a mask. "You have _no idea_ what you're talking about."

"I remember fighting you—Nelo Angelo," Dante says, leaning down to rest his hands on his knees. His whole body feels like a giant bruise. He keeps his eyes on Vergil, though. "If you think I wouldn't switch with you—"

" _Why_?" Vergil interrupts him.

Dante would throw his hands up, if he had the strength. "Why do you think? You're my brother, Vergil."

Vergil looks honestly at a loss of words. That would be a sight to treasure, any other moment. "You hate me."

Dante's so very tired, physically and emotionally both. "I don't," he says simply, and he wishes he could say _I never did_ , but he's not sure of that himself; the dark, angry years after Vergil left all too vivid in his memory. And even that, tried as he might, he could never stop loving him.

It's never been hate that made him stand against Vergil and his attempts to gain more power and doom the world all in one. 

He thought Vergil understood that. 

"I," Vergil says. He looks away. He wipes the blood off his chin with the back of his hand. He still hasn't healed completely. There's sweat on his forehead. 

"What, surprised?" Dante laughs humourlessly. "I know you tried to kill me and all, but I don't hate you."

"I didn't." Vergil shakes his head. "The goal was never to kill you. It would have been unbearable."

It's Dante's turn to stare at him, because his senses all scream that this _is_ his twin, and yet, the words out of his mouth do not belong to Vergil. Cannot.

The worst part is that Vergil clearly is honest, and this means that all these times they fought, Dante was trying to stop him the only way he knew—by killing him, and Vergil . . . wasn't. Out of the two of them, Dante is the one who committed fratricide in the end, but he never thought it was for the lack of Vergil _trying_.

"Could've fooled me," he mutters, his head swimming. He slides to the ground, unable to keep standing. He wonders about Urizen, if it applied to him. He wonders about V, raising the Devil Sword Sparda over Dante's head. 

He wonders about a younger Vergil cutting his hand to stop him following him into hell; about a younger Dante foolish enough to back off.

"I thought," Dante adds quietly, after a long moment, "that if we defeated Mundus here and now—our younger selves, they could have the life we never did. Together."

Vergil sits down, the Yamato back in his hands. "If we did that," he starts, "that Vergil wouldn't have gone back to his Dante. They would've had a different life, Dante, but it's highly unlikely they'd have ended up where we are."

But _where_ are they, really; with Vergil's years of slavery ending in him splitting his soul in half; with Dante's twenty years of guilt and grief drowned in alcohol until the years became foggy, everything mixing together in one long, gloomy period as timeless as the hell they're in. 

Here Vergil is, though, whole again and _talking_. Here Dante is, feeling alive again at last.

Was it worth it?

"So you're telling me you're happy in hell," Dante says. "You always had a weird taste—" Vergil's face closes off, and Dante swears inwardly, hurries to add, "I am too, you know."

The split moment of naked hope on Vergil's face hurts.

Dante gets up. He crosses the distance separating him from Vergil on unsteady legs, all but falls next to him. Vergil raises one eyebrow in a question. 

"Shut up," Dante says before leaning in to kiss him. He can feel Vergil's surprise in his sharp inhale of breath, but Vergil doesn't move away. He brings a hesitant hand to Dante's face instead. 

Dante kisses him like it's salvation. His body still aches, but it's nothing compared to the feeling of Vergil's lips on his, kissing back, slowly at first and then more insistent. Their tongues meet and Dante grabs at Vergil's arm to steady himself. There's a familiar taste of blood—Vergil's half-healed lip must've split again—and he licks it up. Vergil makes a small sound at the back of his throat. 

Dante knows that this, too, can change into a fight; everything can, with them. 

With willpower he didn't know he possessed, he gently separates from Vergil, presses his forehead against his brother's instead. 

"You wouldn't have changed a thing," he muses, almost fascinated. This close, Vergil's eyes are so bright they almost seem silver. 

"But you would," Vergil answers, resigned to it.

If Dante got another chance like that—if Vergil wasn't there to stop him . . . "If you're content," Dante says carefully, "maybe I wouldn't."

He can't offer more, but Vergil seems to understand that. He nods, a miniscule movement so as not to separate them. 

"If it were you, in Mundus' power," he whispers, his hand curling around Dante's neck possessively, "I'd have burnt the world down."

Dante shivers. There's no doubt in his heart that Vergil speaks the truth.

"And you wouldn't have forgiven me for that," Vergil adds.

He's forgiven Vergil a whole damn lot, but . . .

"It's not us," Dante says. "It'll never be us."

Vergil kissing him is like a seal on an oath.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic also has a [twitter](https://twitter.com/tonytears/status/1132703682779406336) and a [tumblr](https://laireshi.tumblr.com/post/185156534277/the-past-is-a-foreign-country) post.


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